Midwest

DALLAS — For a pair of frustrated college basketball coaches involved in a long pride and credibility campaign, today's NCAA Midwest Regional championship game will provide a breather.

The exhausting battle to prove the once-dominating Southwest Conference is more than a collection of good ol' boy football schools has driven Arkansas' Nolan Richardson and Texas' Tom Penders from friendship to the brink of disdain. They once combined in an unlikely partnership, united in the cause to bring back respect to SWC basketball.

That friendship has been tested by hard times and hard losses, by tournament committee snubs and an unwelcome vacation from the national television spotlight. Two and a half weeks ago, they argued during an SWC news conference about their monthlong feud stemming from a game Feb. 4 in Austin, Texas. Richardson had walked off the court with 14 seconds left, and Penders blasted officials for failing to call a technical foul that probably would have clinched a victory for Texas.

Now Richardson and Penders have joined forces again to applaud the return of winning, run-and-shoot SWC basketball.

''This is what we've been trying to get accomplished since I've been here,'' Richardson said. ''It's what we both have wanted. We want to be a nationally known team. We want to recruit like the North Carolinas and the Dukes and the Georgetowns and just select players. We want respect.''

Former Ocala Vanguard High School star Travis Mays, a senior guard for the Longhorns and the Southwest Conference's all-time leading scorer, said he was so unhappy with former coach Bob Weltlich's yawner of a game plan that it almost caused him to return to Florida. ''Anywhere but there,'' he said.

But Penders' arrival, and that of a fast-break game at Texas, gave him reason to stay.

''There was still a question mark, when practice first started, what kind of coach he would be,'' said Mayes, the Texas team captain who has averaged 24.3 points this season. ''But in that first practice he said, 'Hey, we're going to run.' And that was great. That's like candy to me.''